Saturday, July 21, 2007

I was watching an interview the other day with Kiri Davis, a 17 year old filmmaker. I'd never heard of her documentary A Girl Like Me nor Kenneth Clark's original doll test, and I was shocked by the results of both.

Alongside repeating the experiment (with similar findings), Davis also includes interviews with her peers about how they did not see their black features as beautiful or desirable compared to white features.

What interested me the most was that these negative messages did not just come from society at large, but also from these girls' communities and families.

Davis' short film is free to view for all. It's certainly a serious issue that I was never aware of before, and she spreads the word with impressive eloquence and ability.